Missed it by One Digit

Brief out-of-band post today. Normal post will appear tomorrow.

Spin the Wheel

I decided that after Comcast increased my bill again, that it was time to move to something else. When we first got Comcast, our bill was $99 a month for internet and television with some premium channels plus taxes and fees. I thought it was a good deal, and knew the price wouldn't last. It didn't. A year later, the bill was $160 a month. Last month, it bumped again, to $210 a month. Yikes.

I did some research and concluded that I was grossly oversold on my internet bandwidth. So, I did some competitive shopping and decided to go back to Frontier for FIOS (fiber optic). When I called Comcast, the loyalty guy sold me a package change where I got rid of the television part, but kept a smaller internet package. It was still $85 a month, but since there was no contract and it wasn't a promotion, that price wouldn't change.... until they changed their minds about it. The FIOS deal is $50 a month for 2 years.

Guaranteed price won't change for the 2 year period. And they threw in a $75 Visa gift card to offset the installation charge and they threw in one year of Amazon Prime. I'm sure I'll get to pay for all that multiple times over after the 2 years are up.

UnSolution Center
The FIOS installer came today, installed everything and we confirmed connectivity. I switched over my internal wireless to the new system and before the boys were even out of bed, things were now flowing through Frontier instead of Comcast. Awesomeness. So, all that's left is calling Comcast to close-out the internet part. So... hmm... where's that number again? Oh.. right... 1-800-xfinity. So, you translate that into real numbers it is 1-800-934-6489. Be very careful when you dial that. If your finger slips and you dial 1-800-934-6789 you will have the reached the DISH Network "solutions center".

This is a classic boiler-room style hard-sell call center. The person who answered the phone said it was "the solutions center", but did not clarify that it had anything to do with DISH network. She immediately launched into a hard-sell about internet safety, the dark web, identity theft and how my children would be left homeless and starving unless I bought their package of security measures. I started polite, but found that fruitless. I started interrupting her asking simply to help me cancel my Comcast. She pushed harder and I got louder and more forceful, asking her to please stop selling me stuff because I just wanted to cancel my Comcast. Seriously, a recording of this would be internet gold. I said I understood everything she was saying but I didn't want it and then she started to ask me questions like she didn't believe that I was really listening or whatever. I actually asked her if she was going to quiz me. Finally, she asked if she helped me close my Comcast would I be interested in the program. "No". She asked if there was anything she could help with so I would buy the program and I said no, so she put me on no-music-hold for 2-1/2 minutes before someone else picked up.

The new operator said that it was the DISH Network solutions center and since I was not willing to let them help me with anything there was nothing for them to do for me. Unlike his predecessor, he clearly said it was DISH. I asked him why the other lady didn't say that, and he said some bullshit about how she said it was the solutions center.

It was a complete mess. I said it was clear they never were able to help me from the start and they wasted 15 minutes of my day trying to hard sell me some garbage. And then hung up.

The Lessons
First, check and double check the number you dial. If the person on the end doesn't seem right, check the number again while you're on the phone... before you waste time and energy on it. I stayed on the call because I thought this was some crazy hold music up-sell replacement that Comcast had put in place. Had I double-checked the number I would have realized something was up.

Second, don't get DISH Network. This is super-important. Not just for me but for every single person who consumes media. DISH Network is paying those people to act that way. DISH Network wants to scare callers into getting some garbage "protection" which may just as well be another way your data actually gets stolen. DISH Network purposely picked a phone number that is one digit off (and a very close digit on the keypad) to purposely get accidental dialers. DISH Network has obviously instructed their operators to blur the identity of the call center, emphasizing "solutions center" and skipping the "DISH Network" part. DISH Network, you're scumbags. If DISH Network is the ONLY option for media access (which in the US is extremely unlikely since there are multiple national satellite options), read the paper. Or a book. Or your junk mail. Or stare at the stars. Or go to the local coffee shop and use their free WiFi. ANYTHING is better than giving those vultures your hard earned money, underwriting that call center.

The only upside to the time I spent on that call is that some elderly person, or someone who is otherwise afraid of having their identity stolen was not getting hard-sold by that lady for the 10 minutes she worked me over.

Hapy Ending
I am happy with the FIOS, though it has only been a day. When I realized my dialing error and then actually called Comcast, they were very nice. It was not hard to cancel my service at all. Before I got off the phone with them, I alerted them to the fact that the DISH Network hard-sell boiler-room was one digit off of their 1-800-xfinity number (1-800-934-6489) and that someone further up the management chain would probably want to know that. The operator was genuinely appreciative.

Rant over. We'll return to normal posts, as usual, on Tuesday (tomorrow) morning.